Comparing ROI for SEO Versus Pay Per Click

One of the biggest questions that businesses with a limited budget face is whether they should go with pay per click (PPC) advertising online or if they should invest in search engine optimization (SEO) instead? This is a tough question and it can vary greatly from one business to another. While this makes it hard for any outsider to give a general answer, both can be extremely valuable advertising methods. Another effective solutions is do social media marketing to grow your fan base and start making people aware of your brand. Here are some basic questions you need to ask to figure out which one will work best for you.

Is SEO the Way to Go?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of getting your website to the first page of Google and other search engines, and preferably in the top three spots. This is where the majority of search traffic goes, meaning those websites that can get in the top three for major keywords related to their business will have massive amounts of monthly traffic and customers who will keep coming back.

Generally speaking, local SEO tends to be more effective for businesses in a small town or city with a limited amount of competition. If you are a business in a major city or area like Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Orange County, then getting SEO to work (especially with a new website) will be really difficult to accomplish. For example if your OC SEO campaign is just starting, there is a very high chance many other companies have being doing it for years. Having to catch up will take many resources, time, and a solid game plan.

If SEO can get a business to page one, and especially into the top three, then SEO is a fantastic investment that will draw in at least 50% of people searching online for your services. But it’s all about the competition of the top websites in your industry.

Is Pay Per Click the Way to Go?
Pay Per Click has an advantage over SEO in that SEO isn’t always guaranteed, it’s hard to make work in large markets, and it can take a lot of time to work. We spoke with a professional website promotion specialist – Top Rank Solutions to give us better insight on the benefits of PPC on platforms like Google, Bing, and Yahoo search engines. Pay Per Click starts getting qualified leads the moment the ad goes out. The benefit works only as long as the advertising campaign is running. PPC run at an appropriate budget will jump your ad above all the natural search engine results. PPC tends to be most effective for businesses where one new customer is worth a serious amount of money.

The key is you do need to have enough to invest to run a PPC campaign at its best level. If too little is invested or the campaign stops then there’s no major ROI to what PPC can bring to the table.

In Conclusion
When trying to compare pay per click (PPC) to SEO, the key is to look at the individual factors that affect your business the most and figure out which one comes out on top. Both of these techniques can be effective, but if you’re on a budget you deserve the best bang for your buck!